Power steering on a Clipper.....

…as above….would like to hear comments……we still have our Clipper Auto, but are feeling the stress now of not having power steering, due to old age…or the Passatt 'Tug' has spoilt us….
..as it's passed MOT again we have decided to keep it (unless…) so might just splash out, and then get the rust on the wing sorted…then ENJOY it 

Prowler said

…as above….would like to hear comments……we still have our Clipper Auto, but are feeling the stress now of not having power steering, due to old age…or the Passatt 'Tug' has spoilt us….
..as it's passed MOT again we have decided to keep it (unless…) so might just splash out, and then get the rust on the wing sorted…then ENJOY it 

I have just fitted a kit from Mk2 Mania based in Bolton. Very comprehensive kit and straightforward to fit. The cost was £410 which I do believe is a lot less than Crazyquifs.
As the column is on an exchange basis I found it best to collect although it would depend on your location.

WOW….many thanks for that Dixi, already had a heads up about that firm from Chortle and sent them an e-mail…so here's hoping. That is half the price so we could afford to have our local friendly dealer to do the work (arthritis is a real pain in the… so spanner wielding days are over…..and actually they are very good because they have a guy who is fanatical about Mk1's and likes 'playing' with them). Bolton is a bit far from Folkestone, but suppose it would make a good whole day out….

Is the Mk1 power steering kit diff to a MK2 golf ?

I fitted a CrazyQuiff one to the wife's cabby. Good fit, took about a day to do.

One word of warning though - both of these kits come with a small control box. The box fakes two signals using a dual 555 timer. The first tells the Corsa control unit that the cars engine is running. The second tells it what speed the car is doing. Rather than being the real road speed it is replaced by a potentiometer that  you adjust manually.
The first drive was horrible because the level of assistance was too high so the auto centering of the wheel after a corner was non existent, rapid twirling of the wheel was needed. Even with the pot turned right down it did not feel right.

Eventually I decided that there had got to be a better way - I found a guy selling a little control box that took a proper road speed signal and made the Corsa unit work properly. It also let you configure the amount of assistance and at what speed the assistance was removed. Despite contacting him several times to get a spare control box I got no reply. He runs RJES - Subaru engine conversion for VW buses.

If you google you will find a few others who have built systems so that the unit works as intended.

This is interesting as I have heard of this before on the Crazyquiffs system. Where the box of tricks that fools the Corsa control box gives too much assistance at higher road speeds.
Mk2 Mania claim that when their box of tricks is turned all the way down it provides no assistance at all and can be set to a position permanently just as you like it or adjusted as and when.
I doubt many of todays' cars self centre like a non power steering car, my year old Astra included, it is something you have to adapt to.

Forgetting to turn the assistance off is too dangerous in my opinion and could easily cause an accident.
I could not leave it for the wife to get use to.

All cars should self center properly otherwise there is something wrong with the setup geometry.

The thing that would make this conversion perfect is to add a quaife quickrack which knocks off a turn lock to lock.